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Issue 35
January/February 2001
Infinite Energy Magazine
Book Review
Discovery of the Cold Fusion Phenomenon:
Development of Solid State-Nuclear Physics
and the Energy Crisis in the 21st Century
by Hideo Kozima
ISBN 4-87186-044-2, $60.00 Paperback, 370 pp.
Ohotake Shuppan, 1998
Review by Eugene Mallove
Professor of Physics Hideo Kozima of
Shizuoka
University
in
Japan
can
rightfully lay claim to having written the first “textbook” on cold fusion, so
comprehensive is its content. Written in
English, this is evidently a labor of love by one who is both a thoughtful
observer of the history of science and a physicist who has developed his own
theoretical understanding of diverse cold fusion phenomena. He calls this the
“Trapped Catalyzed Neutron Fusion” (TCNF) model, for which he has exhibited
considerable passion at international cold fusion conferences and in numerous
technical publications.
The book blends some of the history of the cold fusion
controversy with extensive coverage of the experimental evidence for cold
fusion phenomena (including effects in ordinary hydrogen systems),
how the author’s TCNF model can explain these, and a perceptive review of many
other episodes in the history of physics that seem to have relevance to cold
fusion. He posits the existence of catalytic thermal energy neutrons, for which
he says: “If we assume an existence of thermal neutrons in a material, almost
all the riddles of the cold fusion phenomenon disappear.”
Kozima’s book is a mixture of
highly technical content with very accessible historical and philosophical
discussions that illuminate the process of science in the cold fusion
controversy. Kozima’s work is not a thorough history
of various phases of the cold fusion saga, as are the positive cold fusion
books, my own Fire from Ice (1991)
and Beaudette’s Excess
Heat (2000), which were clearly aimed at more general audiences, though
this book too in large measure is certainly accessible to a wide audience. As
mentioned, this is more like a textbook of the subject, which offers a
potpourri of diverse and expanding areas, such as heavy element transmutation.
It is a first work by a pioneer in what are certain to be many more such
texts. We understand that other cold
fusion scientists may be contemplating or preparing such books. There is a
great need for such works to cover the topics of cold fusion calorimetry, nuclear instrumentation, materials science,
and theory.
It is noteworthy that Kozima’s book is the second excellent cold fusion book from
Japan
(in English by Japanese cold fusion scientists), the other being Nuclear Transmutation: The Reality of Cold Fusion, by Dr. Tadahiko Mizuno
(Infinite Energy Press, 1998). While the latter was expertly translated by Jed Rothwell from its original Japanese, the slight difficulty
with the Kozima book is its “Japanese English”
unevenness, which was not particularly bothersome to this reviewer, and
occasionally enjoyable. One very charming example (p. 296): “This Huizenga’s conclusion is one deduced by a poor brain only
working on an extension line from muon catalyzed
nuclear fusion where occurs surely d - d direct fusion
reaction.” It should be noted that Kozima’s book first appeared in hardcover edition in Japanese in March 1997.
Some of the extras offered by Prof. Kozima’s work are independent name and subject indices, thirty-seven pages of cited
references, generous presentation of pertinent graphical data, and scientist
contributed essays by Makoto Okamoto, Akito Takahashi, Francesco Celani, Benjamin Filimonov, and Peter Glück. All
in all, an impressive book that deserves to be read widely.
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